EmbPower Provides Nvidia Tegra K1 RTX Modules, Carrier Boards, and Industrial Computers

EmbPower is a Taiwanese company that first focused on graphic cards, but has since then also developed other solutions requiring high GPU performance for military & aerospace applications as well as medical equipment. One of these products is TK1 Carrier Board with TK1 SoM powered by Nvidia Tegra K1 quad core processor, that can be encapsulated into TK1 PowerUnit industrial computer.

There are actually two TK1 carrier boards: the larger V1.2 with more ports and features, and the smaller V2.0 that is used in TK1 PowerUnit Box, but they share most of the same (preliminary) specifications:

• SoC – Nvidia Tegra K1 quad core ARM Cotax-A15 processor with Nvidia Kepler 192-core GPU
• System Memory – 2GB DDR3 @ 933 MHz
• Storage – 16GB eMMC flash and SPI serial flash. V2.0 only: Adds micro SD slot; V1.2 only: Adds SD slot and SATA
• Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet; optional 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0
• Display / Video Output
  • HDMI and optional LVDS port
  • V1.2 only: DisplayPort
• Audio – V1.2 only: Realtek ALC5639 audio codec with Microphone and Line OUT jacks
• Camera – 1x MIPI CSI 2.0 header with support for OV5640 5MP sensor
• USB
  • V1.2: 1x USB 3.0 port, 1x micro USB 2.0 OTG port
  • V2.0: 2x USB 3.0 ports, 1x micro USB 2.0 OTG port
• Expansion
  • 1x mini PCIe slot
  • 1x PCIe x1 slot
  • I/O headers with 4x UART interfaces, 6 x SPI interfaces, 6 x I2C controllers (master), 5 x I2S interfaces, PWM controllers (4 channels and up to 8 bits)
• Serial – RS232. V1.2 Only: Adds RS485,
• Misc – Power switch, RTC, JTAG connector. V2.0: 12V fan header
• Power Supply – 12V
• Dimension
  • TK1 SoM – 68mm x 68mm (Advantech RTX (RISC Technology eXtended) form factor) with 4x 100-pin connectors
  • V1.2 Board – 170 x 170 mm
  • V2.0 Board – 170 x 120 mm
• Temperature Range – -20 to 80 C (Industrial)

There are also two versions of the industrial PC: PowerUnit and PowerUnit_w, with the latter adding 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0, and corresponding WiFi antennas as shown on the first picture.

The company mentions support for two 4K video output devices, and hardware encode and decode, but did not provide anything about software support, except in the comparison table below between TK1 module and Jetson TK1 board, which shows Android and Ubuntu BSP can be provided.

Contrary to what the table implies, Jeston TK1 does support MIPI CSI cameras, although maybe not with OV5640 sensor.

EmbPower’s Nvidia Tegra K1 solutions are available now, but the company won’t disclose pricing publicly. If you are interested in their Tegra K1 industrial computers, boards, or modules, you won’t find many details on TK1 SOM product page, but you can still contact the company there. You’ll be asked for your company details, project schedule and sales’ forecast.

Other options for Tegra K1 based system-on-modules include Avionic Design Tegra K1 CPU module, General Electric Automation mCOM10-K1 Mini COM Express module, or Colorado Engineering TK-1 SOM system-on-module.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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